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World leaders scrap G8 summit in Russia

World leaders sit at a round table during the G7 meeting at the working residence Catshuis in The Hague, The Netherlands on Monday to discuss the situation in Ukraine. (JERRY LAMPEN / POOL / EPA)

By The Associated Press

Mon., March 24, 2014

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS—Seeking to isolate Russia, President Barack Obama and Western allies moved to indefinitely cut Moscow out of a major international coalition on Monday, including cancelling an economic summit Russian President Vladimir Putin was to host this summer.

The moves came amid a flurry of diplomatic jockeying as the U.S. and Europe grappled for ways to punish Russia for its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and to prevent Moscow from pressing further into Ukraine. Also in the Hague, in an unexpected development, Russia’s foreign minister met with his Ukrainian counterpart, the highest level of contact between the two nations since Russia moved forces into Crimea nearly a month ago.

Obama huddled with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan for an emergency meeting of the Group of Seven. Ahead of their private talks, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that the G7 would not join with Russia this year for the annual meeting of the Group of Eight.

“As long as the political environment for the G8 is not there, as at the moment, there is no G8 — neither as a concrete summit nor as a format,” said Merkel, one of Putin’s closest Western allies. Russia had been scheduled to host the summit this summer in Sochi, site of the recent Winter Olympics.

A Western diplomat said the G7 leaders would instead meet in Brussels in June. The choice of location was symbolic, putting the meeting in the headquarters city of the European Union and NATO, two organizations seeking to bolster ties with Ukraine.

White House officials indicated Obama was in step with Merkel. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said that as long as Putin keeps “flagrantly violating international law,” there’s no reason for the G-7 to engage with Russia. At the same time, he suggested that the U.S. and other nations were not prepared to permanently disband the G-8.

“The door is open to Russia to de-escalate the situation,” Rhodes said.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said economic concerns will have to take a back seat as the West determines how to respond to Russian aggression.

“Within the context of Canadian foreign policy, we will do what we can to maximize the commercial opportunities for our firms,” Harper told a roundtable with Dutch business representatives on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit.

“But,” he continued, “we will not shape our foreign policy to commercial interests.”

Russia’s actions have sparked one of Europe’s deepest political crises in decades and drawn comparisons to the Cold War era’s tensions between East and West. Obama and other Western leaders have condemned Russia’s movements as a violation of international law and have ordered economic sanctions on Putin’s close associates, though those punishments appear to have done little to change the Russian leaders’ calculus.

Hours before world leaders began meeting in The Hague, Russian forces stormed a Ukrainian military base in Crimea, the third such action in as many days. Ukraine’s fledgling government responded by ordering its troops to pull back from the strategically important peninsula.

The G7 leaders were expected to discuss plans for increasing financial assistance to Ukraine’s central government. Obama was also seeking to win support from European leaders for deeper sanctions on key sectors of the Russian economy, including its energy industry.

But the U.S. leader was expected to face resistance from some European officials. Russia is one of the European Union’s largest trading partners and officials fear that the still economically shaky continent could suffer if Moscow retaliates, particularly by curbing oil and gas supplies.

In another attempt to isolate Russia, Obama held a separate meeting Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose country frequently sides with Moscow in disputes with the West.

The U.S. has been appealing to China’s vehement opposition to outside intervention in other nations’ domestic affairs and scored a symbolic diplomatic victory when Beijing abstained a week ago from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution declaring Crimea’s secession referendum illegal. With Russia vetoing the measure and the 13 other council members voting in favour, China’s abstention served to isolate Moscow internationally.

“I believe ultimately that by working together, China and the United States can help strengthen international law and respect for the sovereignty of nations and establish the kind of rules internationally that allow all peoples to thrive,” Obama said while standing alongside Xi ahead of their hour-long meeting.

In a counterpoint to Obama and his G7 partners, a group of five major emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — issued a statement Monday opposing sanctions and urging nations to work through the U.N. instead. The so-called BRICS nations said hostile language, sanctions and force do not “contribute to a sustainable and peaceful solution.”

The scheduled purpose for Obama’s long-planned trip to the Netherlands was the two-day Nuclear Security Summit, an international forum the president created during his first term that focuses on eliminating or securing the world’s nuclear materials. While the nuclear talks were overshadowed by the dispute with Russia, Obama did score a key victory on that front Monday when Japan announced that it was turning over to the U.S. a portion of its weapons-grade plutonium and highly-enriched uranium stockpiles.

Obama arrived in the Netherlands Monday morning after an overnight flight from Washington. He opened his visit with a stop at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, where he admired Rembrandt’s massive 17th-century painting “Night Watch.”

The president’s weeklong trip also includes stops in Brussels, where he’ll meet with European Union leaders, and Rome, where he’ll have an audience with Pope Francis. He’ll close his trip in Saudi Arabia, a visit aimed at soothing tensions with a key Gulf ally.

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